afraidofdifference

[afraidofdifference]

the audacity of survival

Underneath the tragedy and adversity, To Pimp a Butterfly is a celebration of the audacity to wake up each morning to try to be better, knowing it could all end in a second, for no reason at all.

As we marched for Breonna Taylor and George Floyd; as the climate apocalypse came to our doorstep in a literal firestorm; as the Age of MAGA raged; as unfathomable death was visited upon us; Spotify’s Year in Review tells me that I listened to a lot of Kendrick Lamar. It wasn’t a conscious choice (unlike with Wilco and The Roots, three straight years figuring atop my most-played artists), but something in K.Dot’s music resonated with the annus horribilis. 

Sports as metaphor is often overblown. Orwell���s “war minus the shooting” is so often misunderstood; Orwell was puncturing the inflated meaning we ascribed to sport rather than underscoring it. 

And yet, I found myself thinking about Craig Jenkins afore-mentioned review of Kendrick’s To Pimp a Butterfly during the remarkable test match in Sydney.

--

As a boy, I spent a lot of time pounding a ball against a wall. Outdoors, I would spend hours on end honing my tennis game against a wall. Pete Sampras (does this date me more than my love for Wilco?) serving and volleying against a wall, scraping the fuzz off a nearly-bald tennis ball, darting side to side till the ferocity of my own shots put paid to any hope of continuing the rally. 

That isn’t strictly true though; I was never Sampras. Not for me the rapid-fire serve-and-volley, three-shot rally on the rarefied lawns of Wimbledon. Andre Agassi was more my speed. Andre who impossibly took balls on the rise, Andre whose neon carapace eventually, inevitably revealed the lunch pail retriever at heart, Andre who took a (second) cortisone shot to grind through a four-set second round victory that was all but forgotten a week later.

Indoors, it was much the same when I would hone my batting skill by tossing a ball against the wall, ready with a solid defense for its return. Everything would be put on pause if one of my favorites, Sachin Tendulkar or Damien Martyn, was batting, but when facing the wall, I was always Dravid. On a pitch where the ball jagged at right angles, the orthodox Euclidean angles of batting meaningless in the face of a most wicked pitch and fearsome bowling attack. The thrill of the struggle as described so eloquently by Sid Vaidyanathan.

--

Near the start of this pandemic, I revisited Drew Gilpin Faust’s This Republic of Suffering. “Mortality defines the human condition”, begins Faust, going on to add, “Human beings are rarely simply victims of death. They are actors even if they are the diers; they prepare for death, imagine it, risk it, endure it, seek to understand it.” Consciously and not, we have all been engaged in this epistemological exercise over the last year. The question uneasily presents itself, what does it mean to survive in a time of such loss? What should the act of survival look like and what can a better survival look like? 

Again, sports as metaphor can only go so far before it crosses into disrespect and trivialization. But gosh if the fifth day in Sydney did not scream louder than Scorsese’s lamentable rat in The Departed. Well past Rahane’s dismissal suggested that we were in for a straightforward denouement; past even Rishabh Pant’s extraordinary Mad Max effort (metaphors all the way down and Pant deserves a post all its own); we were confronted by the prospects of one batsman fighting for his spot on a torn hamstring and another with a dodgy back battling a fearsome bowling attack. On current form and increasingly on record, Starc-Hazlewood-Cummins-Lyon is about as potent a foursome as I have seen. Not content to leave it at that, the writers added a few more theatrical flourishes: a one-handed batsman serving as the only backstop behind the two. 

A large part of me watched for Pat Cummins’ extraordinary skill; art is art even when viewed from a position of defeat. But an even bigger part watched for the audacity of the struggle. I have tried communicating to non-fans just how viscerally thrilling that entire final day was. 

There is a scene in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining where Shelley Duvall’s character looks over the type-written pages that her writer husband, played by Jack Nicholson, has produced. Through Duvall’s eyes, we see the words “All work and no play, makes Jack a dull boy” repeated over and over again. Duvall’s face is centered on the screen and as the seconds tick by, the tension rises as we keep expecting the deranged Nicholson to pop up behind her. It’s only when the shot cuts to go behind Duvall that we realize just how tense, wound up to max, we have been at the prospect of Nicholson appearing at any moment. The Shining is composed of a series of such moments stitched together; imagine being wound up so long repeatedly. No description of The Shining can capture that felt tension, much as the scorecard from Sydney could never hope to capture just how exhilarating every single ball was, for almost two full sessions of play.

The predictable - and cynicism aside, entirely justifiable - celebrations of test cricket qua test cricket at the end of the fifth day. I won’t speak for anyone else, but Sydney was cricket at its most meaningful for me. I’m not sold that the struggle is always beautiful or worth celebrating. But it can be undeniably thrilling, a high that defies explanation. When everything can come crumbling down in a second, an inch (how close was Cummins on some of those short balls?), an instant, there is something comically hedonistic about an entire day stitching together those windows of possibility. Ravichandran Ashwin says that he woke up from a night racked by back spasms thinking of Faf Du Plessis in Adelaide. He will excuse the rest of us for waking up thinking of Pat Cummins in Melbourne. I don’t know what else Ashwin was supposed to do and he would have been no less audacious had he been dismissed and the result been different. That’s the reality of mortality. The feeling is something different. 

[afraidofdifference]

the american ghetto killed ahmaud arbery

On the night of February 29th this year, my partner and I celebrated her having competed at the US Olympic Marathon Trials in Atlanta. While she did not have the race she had hoped for, she still ran with the best of the best. 

We do not run for prize.

Her family and I dined at a chic restaurant close to Ponce City Market. Young professionals and families of varying skin tones rubbed shoulders in the cozy environs; we marveled, not for the first time, at how such spaces in Atlanta cut across race lines in ways that other cities in our experience did not. There was the Black Mecca, embodied all around us. Outside, beyond the Edison bulbs and starched tablecloths, the BeltLine stretched out in either direction.

And we run because we like it

Through the broad bright land.

It would be nearly three months before we would learn that six days earlier, Ahmaud Arbery had been murdered a mere four and half hours away in Satilla Shores, GA.

We know not whom we trust

Nor whitherward we fare...

I have been haunted by the memory of an interaction since the news of Ahmaud Arbery’s lynching finally became national news. It was one of those casual exchanges that happen during a group run. I think we were in-between track reps, or perhaps cooling down after a workout.

Amateur running groups throw an eclectic mix of people together, united by a common love of putting one foot in front of another repeatedly. In a bid to establish some connection with a teammate from Atlanta, I mentioned having enjoyed Ponce City Market on a prior trip.

“Oh gosh, I remember when I lived in Atlanta, that area was THE GHETTO!”

Confession time: When someone white - it is invariably someone white - uses the word ghetto, they lose me. So that put paid to that; luckily we launched into another rep soon after. Or perhaps it just felt that way. 

I have thought a lot about that interaction. My guilt for not having called out the naked racism and privilege expressed in that sentiment. Her presumption of what a space should cater to. The un-interrogated celebration of Ponce and its surroundings having progressed, presumably escaping the debilitating effects of their “ghetto” trappings. 

Contained in that simple sentence was an expression of my teammate’s discomfort with what Ponce used to be. And all I can wonder now is if today, a place like Ponce is THE GHETTO - not to be confused with the ghetto - for someone who looks like an Ahmaud Arbery. The evidence on the effects of gentrification on physical displacement is mixed, but we’re talking here about cultural displacement. When someone can be perceived as a threat in a place where they have spent all their lives, because the place changed around them.

In reflecting on the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, Alison Desir references this quote from the artist Guante:

White supremacy is not a shark, it’s the water.

Ghettos are places of segregation, places of isolation. And America was, is, and is designed to be a place that excludes people who look like Ahmaud Arbery. THE GHETTO will always be subsumed to the ghetto.

The morning of February 29th, another memory came back to me. In October 2014, then-Atlanta Hawks General Manager Danny Ferry had this to say about South Sudan’s Luol Deng:

He's a good guy overall, but he's not perfect. He's got some African in him. And I don't say that in a bad way, other than.... 

This year’s US Olympic Marathon team includes Abdi Abdirahman (born in Somalia), Aliphine Tuliamuk, and Sally Kipyego (both born in Kenya.) Seeing them draped in the Stars and Stripes was satisfying on a visceral level. 

A few years earlier, Tuliamuk lamented:

People say we are taking American spots. That’s ridiculous. We didn’t take anything, we earned it.

Source: https://olympics.nbcsports.com/2020/02/29/olympic-marathon-trials-results/

You know what isn’t earned? The right to claim your ghetto because you don’t like THE GHETTO.

My parents moved to New York City mere months after September 11, 2001, at a time when Rudy Giuliani was a hero and George Bush perpetuated the War of on Terror, which hasn’t precluded him from being canonized either. My family are creatures of extraordinary privilege in many ways, but that did not render us immune to the perils of flying while brown. If Boggarts did exist, they would likely assume the form of a CBP agent or USCIS official for my mother. 

Every time I prepared to board a flight, my mother would urge me to shave. To try and appear less like a threat, less like someone from THE GHETTO of the War on Terror’s worst nightmares. #FlyingWhileBrown was a source of dark mirth for my South Asian friends and I in college, ironic succor as my Pakistani friends were routinely pulled over for random checks and I would sweat through questions about what exactly my father was doing in the Middle East (that amorphous region somewhere between Iran and Afghanistan for the Fox News viewers amongst you.) 

Driving through rural Illinois once, I was pulled over by a state trooper as other cars sped by in rainbow blurs. My clearest memory of that interaction is the question I received when my speed, license, and registration all showed up clean: What are you doing out here?

I had been driving out to see a friend in Southern Illinois, about as mundane and above board as could be. And yet, I stumbled over my words and offered as unconvincing a portrayal of a person doing nothing wrong. Many hours later, I cursed my lack of poise, especially when I wasn’t doing anything wrong. In hindsight, I realize I was mistaken.

I wasn’t doing anything illegal. But I was doing something wrong. I was #DrivingWhileBrown. 

Thankfully, my experience with the American ghetto has been limited. Being middle class and South Asian American allows me to pass for white in most eyes and I benefit extraordinarily from that privilege. I lace up, wear a bandana, and step out for a run without a second thought. I get to #RunWithMaud.

In a wide-ranging interview, Professor David R. Williams remembers a (black) friend in New Haven who would wear a jacket and tie to go out to the grocery store. In the ghetto, even the merest suggestion of being from THE GHETTO can be fatal. 

Flying While Brown has been an inconvenience. I cannot fathom the burden of Living While Black. 

White fear has historically been more justifiable than Black life. That is deeply racist and it is deeply American. 

If we want to truly #RunWithMaud, we’re going to have to dismantle the ghetto. And that has to come from the inside. The United States doesn’t have a race problem, it has a racism problem. So start being an anti-racist, because anything less is complicity, soft white supremacy. In my darker moments, I might even call anything less something simpler: deeply American.

[afraidofdifference]

steph curry is the antidote to toxic conceptions of competitiveness

In a radio appearance earlier this month, Steve Kerr compared Draymond Green’s competitiveness to Michael Jordan’s. In the same interview, Kerr also noted:

I've played with a ton of guys who are really competitive. Tim Duncan for example -- his competitiveness is more like Steph Curry's. You may not see it if you're just watching the game on TV. You may not see the eruptions, the anger.

Here’s Kerr elsewhere:

If you think about Steph, you think of this mild-mannered [guy]...but he's f---ing competitive. He wants to rip your throat out.

That word - competitive - is not one often brought up with regard to Curry. To be sure, worthy proxies are used; Steph “has an edge that’s second-to-none” and of course, he “likes to win too.” But competitive?

We have been conditioned to accept a single understanding of what it means to be competitive. You know the one. It is the competitiveness of Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant. Enough and more has been written about the legendary competitive drive of those two, their need to win above all else. Michael punching teammates in practice, riding Scott Burrell all season long, and so much more. Kobe’s embrace of “competitive rage as an elixir” is equally well chronicled. Both athletes have been valorized for these attributes; even Scott Burrell takes a ‘that’s just what it means to be competitive’ approach, one that could be chalked up to Stockholm Syndrome if it weren’t so prevalent everywhere in our discourse. Or perhaps we all suffer from a case of collective self-delusion, needing to build up the myth of manic competitiveness as a necessary precondition for basketball greatness. At best, a token head nod towards the more complicated aspects of such behavior is all that can be hoped for, “a way to skip past the discomfort and ambiguity of actually grappling with the acclaimed celebrity's monstrousness straight to the part where you congratulate yourself for having done so.” Turns out Kobe was wrong when, in reference to the Colorado sexual assault case, he said that people “didn’t want the gritty shit...and most people still don’t (side bar: That was language Kobe used in 2018 when talking about the sexual assault case, fifteen years after the incident took place. Let that occupy a pew in the back any time homilies about Kobe’s repentance are issued.) People are more than comfortable with the gritty shit. They have to be, lest the hollow cynicism of their fandom be laid bare.

This is not to deny the very real impact of that competitive drive - it is hard to argue against the weight of statistical achievements that people like Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant bring to bear. Moreover, denial is not even the point here; as a wise man once said, “you’re not wrong Walter, you’re just an asshole.” A more substantive reckoning with the competitiveness of Jordan and Bryant would involve acknowledging how their toxic competitiveness is inextricably bound with “the gritty shit”. Jordan’s execrable hall of fame speech was perhaps inevitable, “what fueled his fury as a thirtysomething now fuels his bitterness.” As one team executive in attendance that night in Springfield summed it up, “that’s who Michael is.” Far more serious is the case of Bryant. The sexual assault case has been treated as an unfortunate also-ran in the saga of Bryant, something either incidental or entirely orthogonal to everything else Bryant accomplished. Yet, as Bryant himself acknowledged, the Black Mamba persona was a product of Colorado. Depending on how charitable one wants to be, it was either a coping mechanism, or a deeply cynical ploy to turn scandal into gold. All manners of sin can be hidden in the euphemism “gritty shit”. 

“During the Colorado situation, I said: ‘You know what? I’m just going to be me. I’m just going to be me.’ F--- it. If I don’t like a question from a reporter, I’m going to say it,” he says. “If they ask me a question about this thing, I’m just going to tell them the truth.”

His fist strikes the desk.

“Like me or don’t like me for me.”

This isn’t just competitiveness with a side of toxicity - this is competitiveness as toxicity. And it doesn’t have to be that way. Which brings me back to Steph. You know about the joy of Steph, even the secret rage of Steph, and the selflessness of Steph; “in accepting Durant, Curry may have sacrificed sports immortality for life.”

A quick tangent here, crossing eras, sports, and continents: Keith Miller is an all-time cricket great, a regular Australian hero. In addition to being one of the finest all-rounders of any era, Miller flew night missions over Nazi Germany during World War II. Following the war, Miller was once asked about pressure on the cricket field, prompting his now famous retort that “there's no pressure in Test cricket. Real pressure is when you are flying a Mosquito with a Messerschmitt up your arse!” 

Cutting back to Curry, here’s his friend Chris Strachan: “[Curry] feels God put him on this earth to play, and he never wants to forget that that's what it's all about—play.” 

At the risk of whiplash, let’s cut over to a recent profile of Sabrina Ionescu, the toast of New York basketball right now and torch-bearer for Kobe’s basketball legacy:

Like Bryant, Ionescu had struggled to relate to teammates. Nobody worked as hard. Nobody seemed to take losses in the same soul-crushing way. Oregon Coach Kelly Graves said that during Ionescu’s freshman and sophomore seasons, there were times when she would be sharp with teammates and they would shut down.

“It was brutal,” Ionescu said...“How competitive I am, there was nobody that compared to that,” she said. “There was just kind of this separation between me and the team.”

The story goes on to note that Ionescu, with counsel from Kobe Bryant, made amends with her teammates in order to be the leader they needed. So far so good. Except that I come back to that word “competitive”. I admire Ionescu’s game (and her speech at Kobe Bryant’s memorial moved me to my core); if conciliatory leadership was something that required overcoming a competitive drive viewed as burning hotter, there is something admirable in that. However, it need not be that way. There is another world. I will turn it over to Ayesha Curry in 2016, coming off the Warriors’ Game 7 finals loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers:

“As great an athlete as my husband is, one of his greatest gifts is his ability to keep losses in perspective...Last season could have devastated some people, changed their being, their whole personality. Steph was down for a little bit, and he wanted to reflect on how things could have been different. But by ‘a little bit,’ I mean two days—three at most. Steph wants that championship as much as anybody ever could. But he doesn't need that ring to complete his own sense of who he is and what he's worth. Win or lose, he's the same happy guy.”

Pressure is pressure and all the great ones want to overcome. Let’s cherish the ones who do so while acknowledging that pressure is having a Messerschmitt up your arse.

[afraidofdifference]

don’t forget. ever.

There is nothing to be said and everything to be said. A week ago (has it only been a week?), a large number of Americans learned something that certain people have known all along: the forces of white nationalism can still be effectively weaponized. Ta-Nehisi Coates said that “we had deeply, deeply underestimated ourselves. We had deeply, deeply underestimated our past.” 

And now that past is our present. History is not over, history is now.

What’s missing from the American conversation on race is the fact that people don’t have to hate black people or Muslims or Latinos to be uncomfortable with them, to be suspicious of them, to fear their ascension as an upheaval of the natural order of things. A smart demagogue plays to those fears under the guise of economic anxieties. Things not as good as you hoped? These folks are the reason. Kelley, the historian, said white Americans have ignored race when it serves them and defaulted to it when it suits them. “We think of interest as an objective thing that floats above, but it is subjective,” he said. “Race always plays a role. It never disappears.”

That’s Nikole Hannah-Jones from the frontlines in Iowa. Maybe this is White Nationalism’s last stand. Or maybe it is just the beginning. Or maybe it isn’t a beginning or an end at all. This is a continuation. In the most sober telling, history is a story of oppression. This story is now our present.

In possibly the first line in history, Herodotus of Halicarnassus wrote that he was publishing his research “so that the actions of people shall not fade with time.” There is much real work to be done over the next few years. We all have that duty. Part of that duty will involve chronicling these times, that generations to come may never forget and hopefully, learn. We have been told that Trump-Pence voters felt forgotten.

Well, let’s ensure that they are never forgotten. They are the Nazi sympathizers of our time. And they will be remembered. This space will do it’s part in chronicling those in the sports world who sided with evil.

I won’t forget you Jay Cutler.

We won’t forget you Bill Belichick.

And we won’t forget when you and the hordes you represent betrayed the rest of us.

[afraidofdifference]

the notorious(ly wrong) RBG

Ezra Klein is spot on when he says that the focus on Trump’s extraordinary flaws often detract from his many ordinary, but very consequential, flaws. In this winter of democracy’s discontent, the bar for the acceptable has been set so low that we are at risk being dragged far out to the extremes by the extremists. Staying woke demands that we remain vigilant of much more than the crazies. 

Ruth Bader Ginsburg is an institution, an intellectual colossus. In an election season when other feminist icons have produced disappointing statements already, this from her is deeply, deeply disappointing. It is a sign of the times that RBG can be on the same side of an issue like this as Rex Ryan and Kid Rock.

When asked by Couric how she feels about San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, and others athletes, refusing to stand for the anthem, Ginsburg replied, “I think it’s really dumb of them.”

“Would I arrest them for doing it? No,” Ginsburg elaborated. “I think it’s dumb and disrespectful. I would have the same answer if you asked me about flag burning. I think it’s a terrible thing to do, but I wouldn’t lock a person up for doing it. I would point out how ridiculous it seems to me to do such an act.”

Dumb and disrespectful. Let’s tackle the dumb part. Kaepernick’s actions have sparked nationwide acts of solidarity and ensured that the conversation he wants to remain front and center doesn’t go away. Most stories barely last 48 hours in the news cycle; to the extent that police brutality and the slaughter of black individuals remains in the news, it is mostly a reflection of the number of incidents that have taken place. Give it a few days and we move on from the issue. How many people are still talking about Philando Castile? Forget that, how many people are still talking about police violence? Go to the front page of the New York Times, or The Guardian, or the LA Times, or really any news site. We’ve moved on. Heck, we’ve moved on from the destruction of Hurricane Matthew in Haiti and the death toll there is still rising. This isn’t because people don’t care; it’s because there is just so much to care about and we have limited bandwidth. As Kaepernick takes a knee and as other athletes, in the NFL and elsewhere, we can be assured that the conversation around police violence and the plunder of black bodies is kept alive in some form every Sunday. Even if you disagree with Kaepernick, it is hard to see his actions as dumb. They are serving their purpose in some measure.

And disrespectful? Ginsburg’s opinion smacks of the tired thinking that views athletes as immature children who should just shut up and fall in line with what their society of elders dictates. Calling something disrespectful in isolation also lacks any sort of moral force. Disrespectful of what exactly, pray? A nation that has systematically discriminated against people who look like Kaepernick? A nation built on the labor of those people, one that has transitioned from explicit to implicit forms of exploitation? Surely Ginsburg is sophisticated enough to recognize that by protesting a symbol, an institution, Kaepernick is calling attention to the ways in which that institution is failing. And does she deny that the institution is deeply flawed and needs to be examined? Or does respect dictate an end to questioning and interrogation? 

In a terrific interview with Dave Zirin, Dr. John Carlos says that there is a difference between being mad at someone and being upset at someone. The “someone” here is America and the vision of itself that it projects abroad. For Dr. Carlos and many African Americans, athletes or otherwise, this vision was entirely at odds with their lived reality. Whither respect then? Nobody should demand that an institution that still codifies and institutionalizes oppression be unquestioningly respected. This is about more than the freedom to do so, which Ruth Bader Ginsburg grants; it is about exercising that freedom and deploying it to its responsible ends. Anybody with a semi functioning moral compass can grant freedom of speech; true responsibility, true respect, lies in encouraging speeches of freedom. Australian Peter Norman standing on the podium with Carlos and Tommie Smith. Chris Long coming out in support of Kaepernick. Those are actions that signify respect. As the President said so eloquently in his dedication of the National Museum of African American History and Culture:

This is the place to understand how protest and love of country don’t merely coexist but inform each other; how men can proudly win the gold for their country but still insist on raising a black-gloved fist; how we can wear “I Can’t Breathe” T-shirt [sic] and still grieve for fallen police officers.

By labeling Kaepernick’s protest as disrespectful, Ruth Bader Ginsburg joins the list of people who posit a false dichotomy between kneeling for the anthem and respecting the country, who misleadingly argue that questioning an institution is disrespect. Interrogation is a form of respect, or at least the responsible citizen’s form of it. 

I’ll leave the last word to one of those dumb and disrespectful athletes, Megan Rapinoe.

I can understand if you think that I’m disrespecting the flag by kneeling, but it is because of my utmost respect for the flag and the promise it represents that I have chosen to demonstrate in this way. When I take a knee, I am facing the flag with my full body, staring straight into the heart of our country’s ultimate symbol of freedom — because I believe it is my responsibility, just as it is yours, to ensure that freedom is afforded to everyone in this country.

[afraidofdifference]

cream puff

This is written in anger.

I will confess to checking Twitter fairly frequently; much of my reading is sourced from there, but it is also a reasonable way of keeping up with breaking news stories. Yes, it can be an echo chamber and yes, the intensity with which an issue is covered may not reflect the breadth with which it is being followed by the broader populace. In a problematic world, I can live with how problematic that is.

I’ve been checking in less frequently for a variety of reasons. This morning brought with it Terrence Crutcher. And this evening brought Keith Lamont Scott. The more recent story is so fresh that it hasn’t made major news outlets at the time of this writing. But does it really matter? In this perverse Groundhog Day that we’re living in, the story just keeps repeating itself. It’s been less than a month since Colin Kaepernick began his protest during the pre-game playing of the national anthem. In that time, at least 16 black individuals have been killed in police encounters. The number in that story says 15; another individual - that we know of - has been added in the 7 hours since it was last updated.

The words “terror” and “terrorist” are thrown about a lot these days. They’ve been in the news around the Chelsea bomber. What does it mean to live in terror, to be terrorized? Residents of Chelsea likely feel less secure after the bombing. Perhaps they even feel terrorized.

That feeling is the reality of life for African Americans in America today. The Klan may not be conducting its activities with public impunity any more, but the terror is alive and well. It cuts across class lines. It cuts across occupations. And it truly is terror since it can come any time, anywhere. I was moved to my core by Russell Westbrook’s reaction to the Terrence Crutcher murder. Maybe it’s because Russell Westbrook is about as fire-breathing, all-out scary on a basketball court as anybody in the NBA could be.

I'm tired man. And I'm scared. Cuz I'm big and my skin is brown. Lord don't let my car break down, don't let me be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Don't let me reach for my phone or do anything threatening.

"Don’t let me reach for my phone or do anything threatening.” To be is to be threatening. Therein lies terror.

And terror does not call for cream puff reactions. No Cam Newton, the big picture is not that underneath it all, we’re the same color. And Michael Bennett, your criticism of Newton would sound a little more meaningful if it didn’t come in the wake of a bridge to nowhere. As Vann R.Newkirk II asks, how do you build a bridge with that?

In a powerful piece at The Undefeated that merits a post of its own, Mike Wise recently quoted Elie Wiesel who famously said that the opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.

The time for cream puffs is past. We cannot live in a time of studied moderation any more. Heck, when did a guy kneeling during the anthem even become a symbol of extremism? Everything is upside down.

We’re past condemning the overt hostility. The Steve Kings of this world were never going to stand with Kaep. Or speak out against policy brutality. I’m not sure of what will move the needle on that front.

But it’s the cream puff crap that we can surely eschew with now. It’s time.

[afraidofdifference]

a meaningless gesture with much meaning

Image source: http://www.chron.com/sports/texans/article/Chiefs-Marcus-Peters-raises-fist-during-national-9216045.php

I have recently been watching the Paul Haggis-David Simon miniseries Show Me a Hero. Based on true events in the late 80s, the show depicts the heated battles over a federally mandated housing desegregation program in Yonkers, NY. Some of the most intense scenes revolve around the intense, oftentimes racist, resistance of predominantly white residents to the development of scattered site housing projects in their neighborhoods. The housing issue takes down two mayors, including tragic hero Nick Wasicsko. Looking at an opinion poll at one point, the embattled Wasicsko wonders how anybody in Yonkers could possibly have no opinion on the housing matter.

There are those issues, ones that seem to demand an opinion. Donald Trump. Climate change. Apparently Colin Kaepernick.

It is laudable when athletes use their platform to speak to issues that matter, to take a stand. They are under no obligation to do so. For one, this is still a (mostly) free country and as for anybody, the right to not speak, to not state an opinion, is an athlete’s prerogative. Athletes have the right to remain silent. Choosing not to be a hero does not make anyone a villain.

Especially not when the brave option can be a costly one, as Brandon Marshall is learning. Marshall remains undefeated and has vowed to continue fighting the good fight, and more power to him. In so far as Marshall’s actions are brave, there is a cost. Courage in the face of this is laudable; choosing not to open that pandora’s box should not be met with opprobrium. Again, nobody is required to take a stance.

NFL opening weekend was always going to be interesting. 9/11, Tom Brady’s suspension over Delfategate, a league in continued denial over how the sport in its current form destroys bodies and brains, the sport most in bed with the military complex. And Colin Kaepernick.

In the lead-up to the weekend, Seahawks wide receiver Doug Baldwin Jr. had indicated that the team might do something to speak to the issues raised by Kaepernick. Baldwin has not been shy on social media and given some of his Tweets, one would have been justified in expecting something thoughtful. Something meaningful. Something strong. Baldwin did promise that whatever they did, they would do as a team. Remember, this is a team that counts Michael Bennett amongst its players, the same Bennett who wore a Black Lives Matter t-shirt while calling out NFL players for not doing enough. So we could be excused for thinking that something monumental was in the works.

And we got milquetoast.

Or as Jason Johnson put it much more eloquently:

In a move of unprecedented political cowardice and acquiescence, Seattle Seahawks wide receiver Doug Baldwin says the team will engage in a “unity demonstration.”

“To express a desire to bring people together, our team will honor the country and flag in a pregame demonstration of unity,” he said.

The Seahawks players, with this misguided and ahistorical “demonstration,” might as well paint “All Lives Matter” on their helmets and tie puppet strings to their arms. Because it’s so on the fence, this action will disappoint NFL fans who favor social change, offend “Respect the Flag” advocates, enrage those #BasketOfDeplorables who hate any activism from black athletes and, ultimately, muddle the real issues of police brutality in America.

The Seahawks did not need to speak to the issues raised by Kaepernick. But in signaling that they planned to do so, they took on a responsibility. And to that extent, they can be judged on the quality of their gesture. And it was weak.

The Seattle Seahawks did, indeed, do more than the many NFL teams who chose not to collectively link arms, but it almost didn’t matter. The gesture said nothing of significance. They didn’t pick a side on police brutality and racism. The Seahawks remained neutral, which is a lot like saying nothing at all.

Actually, as Brown highlights, it was worse than weak. It was actively harmful:

The Seahawks instead opted for a somewhat self-congratulatory shout-out to brotherhood with little explanation as to what their brotherhood stands for. They risked nothing and sacrificed even less. The bravery of speaking out about a cause is in recognizing there might be ramifications and moving forward anyway because you know the message is necessary. This was the easy route: they knew they could make headlines while keeping lucrative sponsorships intact and avoiding the possibility of having to answer tough questions. Further, they fanned the flames of an already asinine discussion around the NFL protests by providing those who’ve vilified Colin Kaepernick with a perfect idol of respectability politics.

The Seahawks made a statement, but it should not be confused with bravery. Bravery is Brandon Marshall. Bravery is Arian Foster, Jelani Jenkins, Kenny Stills, and Michael Thomas. Bravery is Dolphins owner Steve Ross supporting the aforementioned four. Or Martellus Bennett with a tribute to John Carlos and Tommie Smith, while his brother linked arms for unity. Devin McCourty and his twin brother Jason. That is unity that means something.

The asinine #BuildABridge hashtag was as meaningless as it was banal. In choosing to thrust their gesture of unity in the same conversation as Kaepernick’s protest, the Seahawks made a statement. They posited values like unity and honor as a counterpoint to what Kaepernick was doing. It was worse than banal; it undermines Kaepernick and far from showing solidarity, throws him to the mob. The Doug Baldwin of a few days ago would have known better:

Some members of the Seahawks had reportedly planned a true gesture of solidarity, but decided against it and in favor of the rubbish that we saw after qualms expressed by members of the team with ties to the military. Which again, just goes to show how far off the mark their understanding of the issue is. Unity is a great virtue...in the right context. To paraphrase Albus Dumbledore (yes, that Dumbledore), it takes great courage to stand up to our enemies and even greater courage to stand up to our friends. 

Just ask the Chiefs’ Marcus Peters.

[afraidofdifference]

today in kaepernick

Three quick links on the Colin Kaepernick situation.

Bomani Jones on how Kaep is asking for justice, not peace. 

This is what a stand looks like. For better or worse, stands that demand people come together rarely have that effect. And contrary to popular belief, stands do not create divisions and fissures. Theyamplify them. The whole point of a stand is to put them on display, to ask the world to confront and examine their hypocrisies and ask why they’re on one side and not the other. Protests that don’t offend aren’t worth the effort. The ones that do are the ones that can change the world.

Tim Kawakami tries to restore our faith in humanity by highlighting the #VeteransforKaepernick movement that took over Twitter last night. The association of the flag and the anthem is problematic in and of itself. However, even if one were to grant that that association has some sort of bearing on this situation, the hashtag highlights what should be an obvious truth: the military is not a single, homogeneous entity. This speaks to a broader point here, that it is possible to be American and still think that America needs to do better. Heck, isn’t the purportedly more patriotic candidate in this election running on a campaign to make America great again? 

Finally, Mike Freeman spoke to a few front office executives around the NFL about Kaepernick. Freeman’s suspicion that Kaepernick’s NFL career may be close to over would seem to be borne out by the reactions he found. Really, all you need to know about the morally bankrupt leadership and ownership of the NFL can be found in this:

"In my career, I have never seen a guy so hated by front office guys as Kaepernick," one general manager said.

This is a league that has signed domestic abusers, accused murderers, players who killed another person while driving drunk and dudes who park in handicap spaces. But Kaepernick is the most hated person he's ever seen? A non-violent protest? Really?

Yes, apparently, really.

Ladies and gentlemen, the most popular sports league in the country. And we don’t need to do better?

[afraidofdifference]

stand down, sit up, stand for something

See bottom of the post for an addendum as of August 29th, 2016.

It’s no secret that I am a fan of Dave Zirin’s work, from his columns for the The Nation to his Edge of Sports podcast, book imprint, and online activism. He hands out the “Just Stand Up Award” at the end of every podcast episode to a sports personality who has chosen to take a stand on an issue of importance.

I imagine Colin Kaepernick will be a worthy recipient in the near future. Why? Because Kaepernick chose to not stand up when the national anthem was played at a preseason game today. Here is Kaepernick’s statement:

I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.

Let’s get one thing straight right away: what is at issue is not whether or not we agree with Kaepernick. It is not whether Kaepernick is right or wrong. There is a debate to be had over what the flag represents, whether showing pride in the flag and the country it represents necessitates buying into the oppression that the institutions of that country perpetuate. Heck, the NFL Players’ Union head doesn’t agree with Kaepernick even as he prepares to do battle on his behalf.

There is not, should not, and should never be a debate over Kaepernick’s right to not show pride in his country. The short reason for why: the First Amendment. But there are more important reasons. There has always been a perverse trend amongst some fans to view athletes as entertainment delivery mechanisms. To deny an athlete the right to speak is to dehumanize him.

Tweet above. It is no coincidence that reactions to Kapernick’s statement have fallen along racial lines. But that is a topic for another post.

Mike Freeman:

Ali's message wasn't always neat and tidy. His legacy was complicated and brilliant. But that is why he was so important. He said things people needed to hear, even if they disagreed. Even if they violently disagreed...I don't agree with Kaepernick. I don't believe the anthem or flag represents bigotry or oppression. Most who honor it don't believe in bigotry or oppression. This is a nation that twice elected an African-American man to the presidency by comfortable margins. A mostly bigoted nation doesn't do that.But this doesn't mean Kaepernick is wrong about some aspects of what's happening in America (though that is another topic). The main point is that we can't ask our athletes to be honest, and then when they are, turn on them.Run. Jump. Score. But don't talk.

Freeman is right about the bravery of Kaepernick’s stance. He also highlights a point that is easy to overlook: Kaepernick is taking a stance at a precarious point in his professional career. He is not in a position of strength and avoiding controversy is perhaps the most prudent professional move right now. This makes his statement even braver. Tim Kawakami had more on that last December. We aren’t talking about the greatest basketball player of all time, or the greatest tennis player of all time, both at the heights of their powers. This is a quarterback who has not lived up to his promise and may already be on his way out.

This is what principle looks like. 

We lost Ali this year. But we have Serena. We have Carmelo. We have most of the bloody players in the WNBA fer cryin’ out loud. And we have Kaepernick. Stand with him, stand for him. Remember how history looks back on Ali and ask yourself: ten, twenty, thirty years from now, which side of that history do you want to be on?

Addendum (August 29th, 2016): Tim Kawakami has video and the transcript of extensive comments made by Kaepernick to the media. Kawakami was right to call the comments “remarkable”. Well worth reading/watching in its entirety for quotes like this one:

There have been situations where I feel like I’ve been ill-treated, yes. But this stand wasn’t for me. This stand wasn’t because I feel like I’m being put down in any kind of way.

This is because I’m seeing things happen to people that don’t have a voice, people that don’t have a platform to talk and have their voices heard and affect change.

So I’m in a position where I can do that and I’m going to do that for people that can’t.

[afraidofdifference]

escape and return in the inner city

Jabari Parker has a remarkable essay in The Players’ Tribune today. For those of you that don’t know, Parker was a standout as a freshman at Duke before being drafted second in 2014 by the Milwaukee Bucks. In the essay, he talks about growing up in Chicago, the challenges of life as an NCAA athlete trying to make ends meet, and making a difference in his hometown. Read the essay in its entirety for passages like the following:

You could be doing everything right. A 3.6 GPA. College recruiters. But you could also be out trying to buy a snack one night and still end up with your face pressed into the concrete trying to keep from getting shot.

Or real talk on life as an NCAA athlete:

I loved going to class. I didn’t care about being the first or second draft pick. But I did care about missing out on reading new books and meeting other students. I never wanted to leave college, man. I loved to learn. I loved just being a kid.

But it was tough being a college athlete. I know it may sound like I’m complaining, but as a basketball player, we got two meals day while we were in season. For the rest of the year, we were on our own. I knew my parents couldn’t afford to send me money every week for expenses like that. I needed to start making money for me and for my family, even though they wanted me to stay and get my degree.

Above all though, Parker’s constant refrain is about going back to Chicago and making a difference in his community. At a time when the bonds of community fray, when school closures threaten existing support systems, Parker asks us to have faith. Not because it is justified, but because we must.

One of the things that struck me about Parker’s essay was the state of vulnerability that celebrities from the inner city can never shake off. Everyone, including the smartest kid in the school and the best athlete in the city, are vulnerable to the violence visited upon black bodies. As Ta-Nehisi Coates says, the destruction of the black body is tradition in America - it is heritage.

You must always remember that the sociology, the history, the economics, the graphs, the charts, the regressions all land, with great violence, upon the body. And should one live in such a body? What should be our aim beyond meager survival of constant, generational, ongoing battery and assault?

Parker’s essay has a note of genuine panic. He pleads for Chicago’s kids to know that their lives matter, but more importantly that their aspirations should matter. “Meager survival” is necessity, but let it not be destiny.

For Parker, escaping Chicago was a seminal moment; it was time for him to go. However, he comes back, to be a role model and to show that you can escape the inner city, but you should never have to leave it. I was reminded of Lebron James’ famous “I’m Lebron James from Akron, Ohio, from the inner city, I’m not even supposed to be here.”

Even in the aftermath of The Decision, Akron loved Lebron James for all that he did for the community. Lebron never left Northeast Ohio. But he sure as hell escaped it.

[afraidofdifference]

ibtihaj muhammad on the frontlines

An early morning bike ride took me through historic Concord last week, barely a few minutes from the Minute Man National Historical Park on the outskirts of Boston. With the humidity at tolerable levels and only the faintest foreshadowing of the heat to come later, it was quite a beautiful morning. At a roundabout in Concord center, a motorist came to a delayed stop and came close to hitting me, prompting a wave of exasperation from me. As the car sped past me, I was given a “Fuck you Osama!” from a rolled down window. So much for the beautiful morning. [2016]

Coincidentally, I had just listened to Hasan Minhaj on Invisibilia talking about the crank calls his father received in the aftermath of 9/11, with giggling teenagers asking him where Osama was. The more things change. [2001]

It also took me back to a day in Hyde Park, Chicago, when a Pakistani friend and I were given a similar dose of racist invective by a random driver. [2008]

Or a day even earlier, when my parents flew in from Bahrain and an uncle from New Jersey asked them - in what I can only assume was an attempt to be funny - if Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri had been on their flight. [20...does it really matter?]

My mother worries about how such naked bigotry might affect me. She asks that I shave as much as possible, because people with beards could be targets in this volatile climate. Thus far the worst has been throwaway comments. But worse is never far away.

Which makes Ibtihaj Muhammad even more remarkable than her Olympic medal in fencing would indicate. Here’s Les Carpenter on Muhammad’s activism and decision to use her prominent position as an Olympic athlete to speak out against bigotry and intolerance. She hasn’t just accepted the symbolic mantle of being America’s first Olympian in a hijab; she has actively sought out the responsibility and power that comes with it.

Oh, I believe so we are in a really peculiar time in our country, where people are comfortable saying things about particular groups, and they encourage fear, and they encourage violence, and I want to challenge those ideas,” she said. “I feel I have to use my platform as an athlete to speak up, and hopefully provide change in this country.

Lest there be any doubt that Muhammad’s status as a medal-winning Olympian might inure her from the sort of prejudice she speaks out against, consider the fate of poor Gabby Douglas. It would have been hard to imagine a more beloved Olympian after Douglas’ sensational performances at the London games. And yet.

So let’s salute Ibtihaj Muhammad’s medal, but don’t forget her bravery. She has said that she hopes to combat stereotypes about Muslims, African-Americans, and women. There is much to combat. And we’re lucky to have people like Muhammad on the frontlines of that battle.

[afraidofdifference]

Marc Spears has an incredible interview with Spencer Haywood today. That isn’t hyperbole; it may be understatement. Haywood was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame last year and in addition to multiple individual awards in the ABA and NBA, to go with an NBA title with the Lakers, led the US team to a gold medal at the ‘68 Mexico City games. These were the games that gave us Tommie Smith and John Carlos (and lest we forget, Peter Norman.)

Spears’ interview is expertly conducted, highlighting Haywood’s life from picking cotton and growing up in the Jim Crow south to ultimately gaining acceptance in a country being roiled by backlash against the Civil Rights movement. Some choice excerpts:

On picking cotton in Mississippi:

I knew I was in indentured slavery. I didn’t have no rights — I couldn’t. I had to go to different bathrooms, I had to go to different water fountains. Oh, I lived my whole life like that.

And then you see the men who own the cotton field, sitting on the porch with big straw hats on looking like Colonel Sanders or something, and drinking julep, talking, ‘Boy! Y’all sho’ can work hard!’ We made $2 a day, he sitting on his ass making $2,000.

Being terrorized by Klansmen:

The worst thing that happened was the day that [President John F.] Kennedy got shot. And some members were with the [Ku Klux] Klan. They lined us up as kids and on the fairway and drove golf balls at our head. And they wanted to explain to us, ‘We got your n—– loving Kennedy and we going to make an example out of you guys.’ It was a hell of day around there.

Beautiful, poignant, heartbreaking:

So I had a birth certificate and a gold medal. And three years before I was a slave. And now I’m an American hero.

Oh, and Haywood is also a labor hero of sorts, winning a historic case in the Supreme Court against the NBA’s then-restriction on players entering the NBA less than four years removed from high school. Really, go read the entire thing. It’s the must-read Olympics-related piece today (well aside from Zirin on the internally displaced of Rio; for all that they highlight human achievement, the Olympics are also an exercise in human rights violations every four years.) The interview had me in tears. 

[afraidofdifference]

Inspirational read for the day, Yusra Mardini who will be part of the Refugee Team at the Rio games. Her identity is going to primarily be that of the refugee, or of the athlete who made it there despite the odds. My favorite bit from the piece though was the following:

Mardini swings between frenetic, uncontainable excitement and half-bored preoccupation. She sends text messages frequently. In other words, she is a normal teenager.

Here’s to a celebration of normalcy in uncertain times. 

[afraidofdifference]

This move is huge for a number of reasons. First, I imagine this isn’t a cost-less decision, even net of any revenue that the goodwill bought translates into. That leads me to think moral considerations indeed carried the day.

More importantly, this marks not just an increasingly progressive evolution of the NBA, but of ESPN as well. ESPN correspondents have roundly endorsed the move and publicized it as the right one. The fourth estate plays a big role in moving social mores; we should be thrilled about this. 

The reaction from around the league, from the Charlotte Hornets organization to players like Steph Curry (from Charlotte) and Carmelo Anthony has also been sensitive and nuanced. They respect and understand the league’s decision, while empathizing with the City of Charlotte and its residents, who have fallen victim to the bigotry of a state legislature far more regressive and conservative than they are. Here is Charlotte Mayor Jennifer Roberts when HB2 was passed:

When people talk about compromising on equality, I think how? Do you make them half equal? It doesn’t work with math, and it doesn’t work with people. Equality is equality...We stood up and proved we support equality and inclusion. Regardless of how or what has come out of it, regardless of how the politics play out, Charlotte will continue to promote and support and display for the world to see our values of equality and inclusion. … That is not negotiable.

She was referring to the non-discrimination ordinance that the City Council had passed, an ordinance that prompted HB2 (and an ongoing lawsuit filed by the Justice Department in response to that.)

This is how change happens. At a time when it seems like the arc of history bends towards bigotry, hate, and intolerance, we need moments like these. Kudos to Adam Silver and the NBA.

[afraidofdifference]

the narrative

I began the following post immediately after the NBA finals and my scrawling has been gathering dust in a notebook since then. Apologies for the disjointed thread that may be a result.

Cleveland is defined by the. The article the that is. One can quibble about this identification of Cleveland with its sports, but Cleveland is the story of the. The fumble. The drive. The shot.

The decision.

Some would list the litany of tragedies as The Fumble, The Drive, The Shot, and so on. But really, each incident doesn’t need its own capitalization. It all collapses into the singularity of the. To miss this is to miss why the summer of 2010 has such significance for Cleveland sports fans. The decision to leave was one thing. The Decision was another. Cleveland fans did a lot to be ashamed of in the aftermath of Lebron’s move. They owe him for more than a championship; some of the more grotesque displays of petulance should have cost those fans more sympathy than they did. That having been said, I can still recognize that it was anger not against a decision, but against The Decision.

All of that has now collapsed, replaced by another reality. Call it The Block. Call it The Promise. Heck, call it The Most Improbable Comeback Conceivable. The 30 for 30 documentary Believeland has already been updated to reflect the new ending, the new beginning.  

I’ll always think of it as The Narrative. We are being sold on this as a tale of destiny, the prodigal son bringing a title home. A tale of redemption, the protagonist having gone from hero to villain to hero in an arc of Homeric proportions. A tale of catharsis, the long-suffering fan base finally given the glory it has craved for ever so long. 

Yet, for every story told, there is another left untold. For every plotline brought to completion, another equally plausible one is left unrealized. The fall of the Warriors has been sold as a tale of hubris. Joe “light years ahead of the rest of the league” Lacob finally getting his comeuppance, the dancing prancing Warriors finally being brought to earth.

Yet, what could be more hubristic than coming back to the team you left with a blockbuster announcement, pushing for a trade that sees your team trade away a fresh number one pick, and undermining the team’s coach to the point where he gets fired after a record start. All because you think you know best what will help bring a championship home?

The Phil Jacksons of the world may see this as vindication of the hoary notion that jump shooting teams don’t win championships. Yet, it wasn’t so long ago that these same Warriors were celebrating in Cleveland’s locker room. Or the San Antonio Spurs, riding a similarly pass-happy offense dubbed “Summertime” blitzed the Miami Heat in the finals. (Side note: That Summertime piece by Jackie MacMullan ranks up there with my favorite NBA features from the past couple of years. Read it if you haven’t already.) More to the point, viewing these Warriors as just a bunch of shooters mischaracterizes them in a big way.

Go back and watch the tape of Game 5, when Kyrie and Lebron both dropped 41 points. Klay Thompson plays excellent defense on Kyrie Irving all through the game, but Kyrie just keeps making buckets. As Andy Roddick once joked about Roger Federer, sometimes the only way to stop somebody may be to punch him in the face. Klay Thompson should know; what he did in Game 5 of the OKC series still seems inexplicable.

Sometimes, storylines can swing on events like those. More generally though, every narrative has an equally plausible counterfactual. If Klay Thompson doesn’t have that fourth quarter, the Warriors juggernaut does not get to meet its maker in the finals. A climax come early is not a story worth telling. Poison pens were at the ready to pen the tale of yet another Lebron coming up short in yet another finals trip. Destiny of one kind replaced by another. On margins as fine as a blocked shot on Andre Iguodala swings the difference between greatness seized, and greatness relinquished. 

Source: http://archives.deccanchronicle.com/130423/sports-cricket/gallery/sachin-tendulkar-master-blaster-40

Cricket in India has often been compared to a religion. Sporting fervor the world over is not too dissimilar from religious ecstasy. This feeling is perhaps best captured by Osman Samiuddin in his essay about the haal of Pakistan. His words about the state achieved by Pakistan’s cricketers could equally be applied to followers of the game.

The state of haal is such that if you, God willing, get there in a gathering, after coming back from haal, you will not be able to describe or explain the feeling. This is just that state that only he knows who has experienced it. Haal or wajd [the literal translation for ecstasy] is such a state that comes to that man and takes him to the goal that he has been in search of all his life. Then he is not with himself, he has reached somewhere else.

The religion/sport analogy is primarily an experiential one. It is also one that gets at how we get meaning in this world. We look to religion for structure, for an explanation of what is around us. By the grace of God. God willing. The search for a narrative in sport strikes me as not too dissimilar from what we do with religion. It is a search for structure in a chaotic world. For meaning and determinism in a world where randomness and variation may explain more than they do not. Some of the best and some of the most vile forces in history have looked to religion for justification. It is a choose-your-own-adventure form of applying structure to the world. Perhaps that sounds flippant, but it is not meant to be.

There is no determinism to sport, destiny is a narrative structure that we impose. Perhaps this choose-your-own-adventure approach is how we make sense of things. Yet, I can’t help but think that in an alternate universe somewhere, Misbah-ul-Haq is scoring the winning runs over fine leg, Kris Jenkins’ three clanks off the rim, and yes, Andre Iguodala gets his shot off a half-second earlier. Sports is amazing enough. We don’t need the narrative.

[afraidofdifference]

serena being amazing again

More substantive posts coming soon, I promise. Until then, make sure to read Andy Bull’s post on Serena Williams and her post-match comments after winning the Wimbledon semi-final.

On equal pay:

I’ve been working at this since I was three years old. Actually, maybe younger, because I have a picture where I’m in a stroller. I think Venus is pushing me and we’re on court. Basically, my whole life I’ve been doing this. I haven’t had a life. I don’t think I would deserve to be paid less because of my sex or anyone else for that matter in any job.

My favorite though, is her take on the G.O.A.T. question:

“There’s talk about you going down as one of the greatest female athletes of all-time,” another journalist ventured. “I prefer the words ‘one of the greatest athletes of all time’,” Williams replied, pointedly. The journalist didn’t attempt a return.

We need icons in these times. We need role models. Serena Williams, never change.

[afraidofdifference]

the best take on the durant decision

Apologies for the clickbait-y headline. More substantive posts coming very shortly after an extended hiatus. Been recharging the battery between jobs and doing some good reading. By now you have likely heard about Kevin Durant’s decision to join the Golden State Warriors. Needless to say, the sturm und drang has already started. Stephen A. Smith is pontificating and you just know that when Stephen A. Smith disagrees with a decision, it was probably the right one. 

In any case, Zach Lowe has an expectedly excellent column on what Durant joining the Warriors means. There is the usual Xs and Os stuff, but also this:

Staying didn't make him a humble hero then, and leaving doesn't make him a villain now. He left a job he held for nine years in favor of another job. His route to the championship is easier, and if he stays long-term in Golden State, he may never be indisputably the greatest player on a championship team.That could be interesting in sussing out his place in history. He also might win three Finals MVPs. Who knows? Everyone hated James for joining his friends in Miami -- until he won a ring. No one ever hated Larry Bird for playing next to Hall of Famers all over the damn court.

Hear hear. False morality aside though, we can spare a thought for Oklahoma City. And Lee Jenkins has one of the more poignant takes on that front. Read it, feel for the Thunder and Oklahoma City...and then get excited for a basketball phenomenon unlike anything else we have seen.